Broken Adventures Linked Together

Without fail, Sheldon and I have been taking in lots of adventure. I don't even know where to start! (yes, the knitting continues to squeeze into life.) A week ago a bunch of crazy knitters filled a room at a local pub on a Friday night. I think the regulars were a little surprised to see such a crowd.... I was. The unexpected thing was the yarn shop that organized it gave away fabulous door prizes.
As you can see this beautiful skein of yarn was a different shade of green than I would have selected, but they included a pattern in the gift bag. Yep, I was a happy Pub knitter. I can't wait to see how this gathering evolves over the next few months.
The next day, Sheldon and I rounded up a few more knitters, packed up our gear and needles to head out of town in the rainy weather. We heard great weather was coming in time for a Sunday afternoon knit-spot. Sheldon and I set up the tent in the rain, got some zzzz-s and awoke to a frozen tent. The temperature had apparently dropped to -2 degrees Celcius,(28F) in the night. Brrr.... crunch, crunch, we knocked the ice off and packed up the tent. Then we got moving into the early AM.

YEp! We spotted the 9100 ft destination. The top looked a little crumbly, but nothing hard-hatted knitters and a hard shelled turtle could not arrive at with mad climbing skills and yarn.
Sheldon was a little shaking getting up the summit blog. He was much happier sitting on top taking in the scene, although the wind kept up from knitting up a storm. (I guess we kind of did not want a storm at this point in the trip.)
After the wind blew us back down the mountain, we finally got our knitting break by this creek. As you can tell the sun was making the day much warmer than this frozen morning. Sheldon was even sunning himself on a rock near the creek. (He is there take a closer look.)
The below pair of socks is a result of our true to spirit "Knit-Out"

These are the no name socks for this months Sockamania knit along. A pretty quit rib style pattern made with Happy Feet. AND wouldn't you know it, hot off the needles and they were quickly on a naked footed friend's feet. You see my friend Dragonlady had a fire-y party, good food and roaring company. At the party I was able to off load 9 pairs of socks!

These dragons grab up my new Cookie A Devon socks soon after the kitchner. There was NO WAY I was going to lose a knitting hand to grab them back for me and Sheldon almost become dragon food. Kind of a bummer those socks are gone because there were made from the KnitPicks Alpaca/merino wool naked sock yarn. Dragonlady actually did the Kool-Aid dying with Berry/cherry combo and then an over dye of grape. So these dragons had better really enjoy the one of a kind socks!
I may have failed to mention before off-loading some of the sock stash I attended a knit out. The attendance WAS profitable as you can see here:
The goody bag included lion brand Wool-ease and size 8 straight needles, Addi turbo size 8 needles and some Stoller & Stahl BIG super wash yarn, and Jojoland Melody yarn to make the included pattern. Let's just say it was a great day.
Here I leave you with an unedited video of Sheldon's knitting group. It really was a beautiful day just a tad bit winding for knitting on the summit.

Did you notice the massive drop off? It is ok if you did not look, it is a little scary for some knitters.

Here is a shout out to my fans all around the world, including the Mediterranean.
I hope to be back before the end of the month with one more sock made the wrong way. It is made from Sock Summit stash. :)

Summits, Superheros and Sunshine

Man! I don't even know where to start. August is gone and there is still so much of a story to tell. The month started with Sheldon dragging me to this location in Portland.
He wanted to help set a Guinness Book of Record. So we dusted off our straight needles and grabbed some non-sock yarn, YES, that was a challenge around here. We did not hurt ourselves with the straight needle sticks, and we DID help break the record of knitters knitting consecutively for 10 minutes. Cool, eh?
As you may have guessed we were at Sock Summit. Sheldon dove right into the yarn.

He was happy to not be a cow, Milk yarn. What will they think of next? Turtle shell yarn? Or is that Chitin in the Tofutsies yarn? (Just kidding Sheldon, Chitin is shrimp & Crab shell.) We looked at many beautiful yarn and kept the purchases to a minimal level.

Although we kind of broke the one skein budget.

And had to sell my mountaineering tent the following week. Hey... wait.. look on the bright side, without the tent I will stay home a little more and get more knitting done, right? Beside I only bought about a years supply of sock yarn.

It was cool that there were ball winders at the Summit. Sheldon wanted to take a spin on this one but instead settled on just rolling in their baskets of fiber.

We eventually jumped a train away from the piles of sock yarn and went to meet famous people like.....BOB!
How cool was it? Sheldon really liked meeting Bob and thought he was really awesome. The party Bob threw was really amazing, complete with gift bags. Next meet-up, Sheldon is mandating hand knit socks to hang with the big dogs. :( Work is never done for Sockergirl, unless Sheldon learns to knit.

To work off the sock yarn high, Sheldon and I took a bike ride with about 10,000 others.

Are we supposed to on the freeway? Did we take a wrong turn?

Really? Its gone? NO regrets, right? Fair trade? hmmm...
.....just quit thinking about it...
After that weekend the Sunshine cleared. Cookie A. Rocks! She signed my book and touched this pair. What a cool gal! Should I ever wash these socks?
You fans might have thought I was under the weather only knitting one pair of socks for August. You were RIGHT! It was not the swine flu but almost as deadly, Acyrlicitis. The disease causes a person to knit large non-wool item for future superheros.

This project started with 14 stitches and ended with 728 stitches. By row 100 I had about 500 stitches on the needles, and I kept thinking about how that would equal 9 rows on a sock. Then each color change should have been half a sock. A crochet hooks was even to used to add the webbing. Can you see how painful this red heart blanket was for me? I am telling you this superhero better take this item off to college in 18 years!
For now Sheldon enjoys the web, pretending to be a superturtle and I hope you fans all over the world do too! Let's hope September brings us three pairs of completed socks and some.

Slippery Surfaces

Sheldon and I jumped in the car bright and early. Passports in hand, we were headed for a big international trip. A little currency in our pockets, we headed north for a few hours in hope for finding Maple flavored yarn. Before we got to the boarder we picked up the homemade cookies.... I mean cousin Nyata who brought the cookies in trade for a days adventure. We won't mention her getting her fingers stuck in the car door getting the lunch out. You could say she had a little bad luck today.
This was our big destination the Oval. Alright, so you might have caught on that Sheldon and I were out doing a little research for the winter Knitting Olympics. Yes, trying to assess the size of the event ahead of us. First we started outside the building with the beautiful architecture and artwork.

And high rafters. The wood used in this building is beautiful pine beetle infested lumber, one million board feet. The roof is 6.5 acres!
After sheldon got out of the cement, we wondered further around the building...

to the salmon pond.

Before we headed inside the Oval Cousin Nyata had to attract a bee to sting her foot and take a little attention away from Sheldon. He then made a friend.
And would not leave until he had free entry and $3 skate rentals.
This is a 400 meter rink to be used for the speed skating contest. In the middle there are 4 basketball courts, 4 badminton courts and 4 ping pong table. This place is ready for any competition, even a little knitting?
Oh, Sheldon wants you Olympians to know the time to beat in the 400 meter is 87 seconds.
Finally, after skating we wandered down to an old Japanese fishing Village, Stevenston. We were able to take in the farmers market, but not able to taste any of the international cuisine or local sock yarns as we did not have any currency.

Therefore the three of us drove back to our land of the free to fill our tummies. BUT why is it sooo difficult to enter this land??? I am always baffled by this timely event.
Thanks again to our fans out there for joining us on our field trip, please don't turn us into the knitting police for trying to assess the competition ahead in the up coming event.

NO Kidding!

Apparently my number one fan thought I staged the previous blog posting. Seriously... The green yarn was at the bottom of my drive and the yarn is still there! So I decided to make a voodoo doll to protect me. She is made from the most fabulous yarn "No Kidding." (It was free for a contest.) The yarn designer must have created it as a joke! If you are dying to get your hands on No kidding, I can hook you up with a ton of it for free. My self designed doll has quickly made friends with Sheldon, well he is a little spooked by her beauty.

Then Voodoo Girl and I went off to Stitch N Pitch. She was part of my gift bag set. If I actually used No Kidding I would get a prize. (Have you noticed I am all about free or discounted?) Here is Voodoo Girl posing at the coffee shop before the gates opened up at 5pm.

When I entered the ticket gates, I asked where the Yarn vendors were. The ticket-taker looked at me and said, "Yes, there are vendors at the top of the stairs in case you forgot something." Hmmm, are knitters forgetful? It seems my groupies forgot a FEW items, projects AND cute knit kits. I was good and knit with what I had on me.

Since Voodoo girl and I bought no souvenirs, my friend D helped me get the perfect souvenir picture of Voodoo-girl enjoying the game. (Wait, were they even playing back there?) I just know there was a game in the background interfering with our knitting conversations, someone won and someone lost. BUT I did get my prize for the joke yarn I knit. Was it worth it??

I can always use another set of needles. Seems every time I need a specific needle, I don't seem to have the correct length or size... or smoothness. In recent I have been depending on my fans and supporters. Thanks again for feeding the addiction.
Sheldon and I are going to leave the country. I hope his lack of a passport does not cause us trouble with security.

This might be a sign.

I walk to work and on my way this morning I found this along my shared drive way.

[The above image should show a wood log piece with green acrylic yarn set on top.)
What does this mean? Is it safe to return home? Should I have picked up the yarn to protect myself later in the day? I am so conflicted and confused by this siting!!!
WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?????

Wave Hot!!!!

Sockergirl is sooooo glad the last game of the season was last week. IF we had a game this week the temperature would have been 41.5 degrees. (For you Americans, that would be 106 F.) For this NW girl... 41 is too hot! I want my meter of snow and this Character back so I can wear my wool socks.

Since Sheldon was trying to crawl out of his shell to stay cool, we jumped in the car and headed west. Having no AC, we kicked in the "460", 4 windows rolled down going 60 MPH. Driving in the sunny day was making the steering wheel & gear shift HOT, I wished I had my Mario Andre driving gloves to keep from burning my hands. But we were headed for cooler grounds. You know it, first stop was:

It was quite busy as we were not the only ones with this genius idea to move closer to the Pacific O. We ordered up our ice cream then wandered into the work zone.

Sheldon was quite excited to see his favorite cheese being made before his threaded child proof eyes. When we got to the cheese tasting section he dove right in, and had to have a picture laying in the cheese.
After the Cheese Factory Sheldon realized he was moments away from meeting other Sea friends. He soon was dashing down the trail to see the ocean for the first time.
Then he posed for you readers and fans:

And tried to make a friend:
Sheldon's new friend was a bit stingy... and we moved on. WE knew a day at the beach is not complete unless you build two things.

A drift wood fort AND....
a sand castle complete with a king turtle.
Sheldon was mesmerized by his sand shadow following him everywhere.

As the sun got lower in the sky and his shadow BIGGER, Sheldon wanted to go back to the cabin for the evening. This is the best sunset picture I captured before heading inside for the night.

Wednesday we woke up to heavy fog and temperatures in the teens, 16 C / 62F. This was wonderful weather for finding the local yarn shop, in an explodingly BUSY beach area.

Can you believe this was a Wednesday? Don't these people work? Or are they ALL hermit knitters like myself? Parking was another issue at the Exploding Beach, again thanks to my yarn shop who has me covered with private parking. :)
Then we retreated to our quiet town to knit and blog, without a sunset view.

I hope these pictures make you feel cooler if you are burning up in an unnaturally warm climate. Here is a shout out to my fans in Iceland.

Jackpot!

I hit the gold spot! See? Here is my hard earned yarn from the Sockamania Knit along group. This just might be worth more than a bar of gold...... to me. :)
While I was awaiting my bar of gold, I whipped up another two pairs of socks.

This is Knitpicks yarn with Fixation scrap yarn in the heels and toes. There is a heart pattern camouflaged into the stripes.

This sock here is Darcie's disaster. It was headed for the trash can until Scokergirl swooped in to save the sock's life. You see, this associate of mine, let's call her D. She picked out the Tofutsie yarn and the colors fit in with her color scheme, so she started the sock. She knit away steadily getting past the heal turn and then... the yarn won. It is kind of splitty and started pooling. D was really going to toss it in the garbage at the coffee shop. SO I collected the abused yarn, took it home and gave it a little TLC. It now has a mate and is ready to make a debute.... well after the heat wave passes. (If you likes temps in the 100s come on over, Sheldon and I are headed to ocean.)
Here is a shout out to my fans in Antarctica, wishing I was knitting with you. What day does your knit group meet, again? To all my other Fans stay cool and keep knitting.